paper cuts
by xfucktheglasses
Summary: Just somebody I used to know. —Kuki-centric, Wally/Kuki.


For **TK.**

I took SO MUCH liberties with this. I probably failed but Kuki is angry and angsty in my head and I can't seem to change that tune? Anyway, I like it so whatevs. Don't say I didn't warn you (:

**paper cuts  
**

Kuki likes to sit on her front porch when it rains.

She curls up at a corner of the three steps, knees tucked under her chin and toes of her dirty sneakers atop each other. Funny, Kuki didn't really like the rain; she liked the sun, sitting under its glare and staring at the world with the need to scream clawing at the back of her throat. She doesn't get that feeling; it's just there, it's always there. She doesn't remember when it came and she doesn't understand why it wouldn't just leave.

Kuki doesn't understand a lot of things, as of late.

Every day it's something different; like why Mushi disappears so much and why that blond boy with the pretty green eyes passed by so much, his eyes hard and his jaw tense.

But Kuki doesn't care, that's the thing. She doesn't understand, but she doesn't care, yet she cannot seem to drop the subject whenever it chose to annoy her brain. Sometimes, she entertained the thoughts of times where she'd handle things different; when she'd throw caution to the wind and allow curiosity to kill the curious cat and she'd wander, looking for answers with sunshine smiles and bubble laughter.

But now all she's got is electronic cigarettes and that silly three tattooed at the space between her forefinger and her thumb.

It should mean something, but she doesn't know what. The attempts to figure it out always left her with migraines and the need to yank at her hair, so she doesn't try.

She's sixteen and a mess in a dress, thick hair following her like black fire and eyes hard and cruel as she challenges the world. She's nothing but black tattered tights, green legwarmers and green shirts too big and so goddamn comfortable. She likes to sit on her front porch, smoking cigarettes, singing Les Mis songs under her breath at three in the morning and counting things by three.

The rain begins to fall harder and Kuki slowly stretches a hand out, palm facing upwards and cupping to let the water pool at the center. Its cold, like her eyes—like the eyes of that blond boy with the pensive look on his face. She tilts her head to the side and thins her lips, too entranced on watching how the three on her hand blurred under the rain to pay any mind to the approaching figure.

When she realizes he's there, she thinks of school and English classes and lectures in clichés.

His eyes are wild and green and _oh_ how she loves green. He's sopping wet, blond hair sticking to his face, clothes like second skin and lips pale.

Kuki wrinkles her nose and raises an eyebrow; he makes her think of nights where frosted sake bottles decorated her floor because her mother was too much yet not and her father was the same and Kuki had been fourteen and so angry at everything for every and no reason at all. The memory made her curl her lips and she swears she should be smiling because that was polite but Kuki wasn't like that anymore.

"Sorry," he says, and his accent is thick. "I—"

"Who wanders the streets at three in the morning under a storm?" she asks, voice husky and nothing like the high pitch squeaks she once was known for.

He stares at her for a second or two before he unabashedly climbs the stairs of her porch to hide from the rain. He's dripping water on the hardwood but he doesn't seem to mind and Kuki doesn't care enough to voice anything; she'd much rather look at his pretty eyes, not that it'd mean anything.

"Who sits ou'side at three inna mornin'," he counters, sharp smirk on his lips.

Kuki stares at him again and she feels this thing in her veins and in the spaces in between her bones; like a calling, only not, because Kuki didn't believe in things like that. But she feels something like heartstrings pulling and three years of emptiness like the weight of the world on her shoulders and she snatches her e-cig and her bearings, standing up from the ground, long hair flying around like a protective curtain as she sneers at this stranger-not-stranger-yet-stranger, all wildcat and overwhelmed.

"I used t' know someone like ya, once," he says to her back as she whips around and makes for her front door. "I'm not over her yet 'n I don' think I ever will."

And Kuki leaves, then, slamming the door behind her and counting in threes—three, six, nine—because she's never liked the first five numbers or the need to cry they left her with. But she counts by threes as she leans against her door, the rain drowning her heartbeat, because there's no even numbers when she counts by threes. At least there is no four.


End file.
